Everything in I, Tonya That Really Happened (And What Didn't)

Everything surrounding the release of the Tonya Harding biopic I, Tonya screams, "Take this with a grain of salt." In the trailer, Margot Robbie as Tonya gruffly reminds us, "The haters always say 'Tonya, tell the truth.' There's no such thing as the truth. Everyone has their own truth." The epigraph to the movie says it's based on "wildly contradictory" interviews between Tonya and her ex-husband, Jeff Gillooly. Still, the movie is pretty closely aligned with reality, or at least Tonya's version of reality. Here, a roundup of what was as real as the video footage at the end and what was faker than Margot Robbie's face on that other skater’s body.

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FACT: Tonya's mom hit her with a hairbrush.

Both Jeff Gillooly and Tonya’s mother, LaVona Golden, deny that they ever abused her. Tonya says her mother threw a knife at her and it stabbed her in the arm and that Jeff confronted her, pointed a gun at his own head, and fired it as she was running away (both memorable moments in the movie). Those aren't corroborated, so you have to believe who you believe. But the one story of abuse that everyone — LaVona, Tonya, and another witness — agrees happened is LaVona hitting her daughter with a hairbrush. In I, Tonya, the skater is a young kid when it happens. In Truth and Lies: The Tonya Harding Story, documentary filmmaker Sandra Luckow says she remembers LaVona beating Tonya with a hairbrush during shooting for the documentary Sharp Edges, which was filmed when Tonya was 15.

FICTION: That homemade rabbit coat.

In the movie, Tonya's coach insists that Tonya needs a fur coat to be taken seriously, but LaVona is having none of it so Tonya improvises. After skinning a bunch of rabbits with her father, we see her the next day decked out in a rabbit fur coat. It's a funny scene that shows her grit, determination, and spiritedness, but it’s sadly not true. Tonya told The New York Times that she bought that coat (and has two fur coats now).

FICTION: Tonya confronting the judges on the ice.

Throughout the film Tonya feels cheated and frustrated by her low scores, and in one sequence she skates over to the judges and asks, "How do I get a fair shot here?" One woman tells her that they judge on presentation while looking at Tonya's pink outfit (which we've just seen her sewing so enthusiastically) and then says maybe Tonya's not as good as she thinks she is. Tonya hisses back, "Suck my dick." The real Tonya loves the movie, but also told The New York Times that she never would have yelled at the judges on the ice or used as many swear words as Movie Tonya does. "Trust me, I don't say the word [expletive] 120 times a day," she said. However, she did say that she confronted the judges off the ice and they did tell her to buy better and more expensive costumes.

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FACT: The triple axel and the broken shoelace.

One of the most exhilarating moments of the movie comes at the very end, when you see the real Tonya’s 1991 national championship performance during the credits. The movie copies a lot of the announcers' dialogue, down to one announcer exclaiming "good girl" after she lands her triple axel, becoming the first U.S. woman to do so in competition (although in the movie the female announcer says it and in real life it was the man). Margot nails Tonya's elated face in the movie, but there's nothing like seeing exactly how excited she was, so just watch it here. Even now, remembering the moment makes the real Tonya cry.

But if we're going to talk about good skating moments, we have to also talk about the bad ones, and the movie mostly depicts the 1994 Lillehammer Olympics as they happened. The Tonya vs. Nancy rivalry was in full swing by this point and everyone around the world was watching to see who would be victorious. At the time, many people wanted Nancy to win because of the scandal, but it's still devastating to watch Tonya realize her shoelace is broken. Below, you can watch the real-life video of Tonya and her team struggling to lace up her boots as she's supposed to be on the ice, and you can also see that Tonya really did mutter that she would break her ankle.

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FACT: What Tonya said about whipping Nancy's butt, pre-conviction.

As the heat is narrowing in on Tonya and Jeff in the movie, Tonya tells a crowd full of reporters that it won’t be a true crown until she gets to face Nancy and "let me tell ya, I'm gonna whip her butt." This is exactly what she said in real life, too.

FACT: That note in the trash.

Now that we've gotten to the actual incident, facts become a little murkier. Here's what we know: A note was found in a restaurant dumpster that had the arena where Nancy was practicing written on it as well as the time when she was practicing, and it was written in what people think is Tonya’s handwriting. In Truth and Lies, Tonya denies that it was her writing, but the note definitely did exist.

FACT: The idiot hit men.

In the movie, hit man Shane Stant bungles his way through the attack, breaking a locked glass door with his head to escape and drive off. In real life there was a broken glass door, too, but there was a lot more snow. When Movie Stant is arrested the cop says, "Next time you pull off a hit, son, don't put it on Visa." The real Stant did charge hit-related expenses to his credit card, and even forgot it and had his girlfriend mail it to him so he could rent a car. The movie mocks the attacker for moving his car every 15 minutes to seem less suspicious; in real life it was every 30 minutes, but, still, yikes.

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FICTION: Some aspects of the death threat.

In the movie Tonya gets freaked out when someone calls in a death threat that says if she skates that day she'll get a "bullet in the back." This inspires Jeff Gillooly and Shawn Eckhardt (his friend, her "bodyguard") to plan their own attack. Shawn later admits to Jeff that he was the one who called in the death threat on Tonya as part of his big master plan. While the death threat did happen in real life, it's never been confirmed who called it in.

FACT: Shawn Eckhardt's whole deal.

There’s been a lot of Oscar buzz around Margot Robbie, but Paul Walter Hauser, who plays Shawn, deserves some love too — it's an uncanny portrayal. As he did in the movie, the real Eckhardt said that he had training in counter-espionage and counterterrorism, and he did brag about pulling off the Kerrigan hit to a minister named Eugene Saunders.

FICTION: Shawn wears a wire to talk to Jeff.

Movie Shawn instantly flips on Jeff in the movie; the FBI sets him up to wear a wire but Jeff figures it out and doesn't say a thing. It's one of the films tenser scenes, but it probably didn't happen. One person who did wear a wire was our friend the minister, Eugene Saunders. According to ESPN, Saunders wore a wire to try to get a confession from Shawn but Shawn sniffed him out. Wearing a wire, it turns out, is the one trick even bad criminals know about.

FACT: Nancy Kerrigan seemed angry at the medal ceremony.

Movie Tonya gets angry that Nancy Kerrigan had a sour look on her face while accepting the silver medal in Lillehammer and says, "When they put that medal around her neck she looked like she stepped in poo. She does! I mean, come on! How am I the poor sport in all of this?" In real life, Kerrigan received some backlash for her behavior before the medal ceremony. Someone told her that the medal ceremony was delayed because Oksana Baiul was reapplying makeup (in reality people were scrambling to find the Ukrainian national anthem) and Kerrigan was recorded saying "Oh, come on. So she's going to get out here and cry again. What's the difference?"

FACT: Tonya did receive a huge punishment for her crime of "hindering prosecution."

Margot Robbie’s big potential Oscar moment comes in a courtroom scene at the end of the movie, when Tonya breaks down after finding out she's been banned from skating. "All I know is skating," she cries. In real life, Tonya had to surrender her U.S. Figure Skating Association membership (and later was banned for life). She was also sentenced to three years probation and 500 community service hours, charged a $100,000 state fine and $10,000 to reimburse the prosecution, required to undergo psychiatric evaluation, and given the responsibility of setting up a $50,000 fund for the Special Olympics.

FACT: The boxing.

At the end of the movie Tonya becomes a boxer, and as many people probably remember, this is true and bizarre but only lasted for two years of Tonya's life post-incident. She boxed against Paula Jones in a celebrity boxing match then fought professionally for a short time. In 1996, she acted in a TV movie called Breakaway, and stills from her "wedding night" sex tape were also published in Penthouse. Talking about her other odd jobs, The New York Times says, “She’d worked as a welder, a painter at a metal fabrication company, a hardware sales clerk at Sears, where every day some guy would ask if there was a man who could help him, and every day she’d school that guy on how much more she knows about tools than just about anyone.” Nowadays, she goes by the name Tonya Price and skates for fun in her free time.

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